FORE:No small curiosity was experienced to see the man that had maintained a defence, obstinate and protracted beyond any related in the annals of modern war. Gorgeously attired in silks and splendid arms, he rode a magnificent Arab steed, with a rich saddle-cloth of scarlet. He but little exceeded the middle size, was powerfully but elegantly formed; his keen, dark, piercing, restless eyes surveyed at a glance everything around. He neither wore the face of defiance nor dejection; but moved along under the general gaze as one conscious of having bravely done his duty.The Houses of Parliament reassembled on the 17th of January, 1712, and Anne sent word that she was not able to attend in person, not having recovered sufficiently from her attack of the gout. She announced that the plenipotentiaries were now assembled at Utrecht, and[2] were already engaged in endeavouring to procure just satisfaction to all the Allies according to their several treaties, and especially with relation to Spain and the Indies. This was a delusion, for, by our treaty with the Emperor, we had engaged to secure Spain and the Indies for his son; and it was now, notwithstanding the assurance in her message regarding them, fully determined to give them up to Philip. There was a strong protest in the message against the evil declarations that there had been an intention to make a separate peace, though nothing was more notorious than that the Ministers were resolved, if the Allies did not come to their terms, to go on without them. The message ended by recommending a measure for the restriction of the liberty of the press. Much alarm was expressed at the great licence in the publishing of false and scandalous libels, though the Ministers themselves did not scruple to employ the terrible pen of Swift.
FORE:Another council was immediately summoned to determine on the choice of a new Empress. All had been arranged before between the House of Austria and Napoleon, and the cue was given to the council to suggest accordingly. Eugene Beauharnais was again strangely appointed to propose to Prince Schwarzenberg for the hand of the archduchess, and, having his instructions, his proposal was accepted, and the whole of this formality was concluded in four-and-twenty hours. Josephine set out for her new estate in Navarre, and Marshal Berthier was appointed to act as proxy for his master in the espousals of the bride at Vienna. There were difficulties in the case which, strictly Catholic as the Hapsburg family is, it is surprising that they could be so easily got over, and which show how much that Imperial family was under the control of "the Upstart," as they familiarly styled him amongst themselves. The Pope had been too grievously insulted and persecuted by Buonaparte for it to be possible for him to pronounce the former marriage invalid; had it not been also contrary to the canons of the Church to abrogate marriage, which it regards as an entirely sacred and indissoluble ceremony. To remove this difficulty, it was stated to the Austrian family that Buonaparte's marriage with Josephine had been merely a revolutionary marriage before a magistrate, and therefore no marriage at allthe fact being originally true, but it had ceased to be so some days previous to Buonaparte's coronation, when, to remove the Pope's objection, they had been privately married by Buonaparte's uncle, Cardinal Fesch. The wedding took place at Vienna, on the 11th of March, 1810, and a few days afterwards the young Empress set out for France, accompanied by the Queen of Naples. Buonaparte, who maintained the strictest etiquette at his Court, had had all the ceremonies which were to attend his marriage in Paris arranged with the most minute exactness. He then set out himself to meet his Austrian bride, very much in the manner that he had gone to meet the Pope. Near Soissonsriding alone, and in an ordinary dressBuonaparte met the carriage of his new wife, got in, and went on with her to Soissons and thence to the old chateau of Compigne.